March 8, 2013 - More Spring Cleanup

It wasn't as warm today as it was yesterday, but it was still comfortable working in the sunshine. I got the entire east garden cleaned up, so it's ready for forming the planting beds now. The plan, so far (you know I'll probably change my mind) is to plant most of this area in corn. I got all of the compost area cleaned up, too. I still had three bags of chopped leaves, but I can probably incorporate them into the garden beds as I dig them, or use them for mulch.

I set the tiny lettuce and leek seedlings out for a bit of sunshine.

Then I went to town and bought my Walla Walla Sweet Onion plants. The plants are gorgeous this year. The past two years they haven't been nearly this nice. There are supposed to be 50 onions in each bunch, but usually there are at least 60. For $1.49 a bunch, there's no way I'd bother trying to start them from seed. I should harvest about 50 pounds from these two bunches.

While I was in town, I went to the dollar store to look for a doggy pooper scooper. They didn't have any, but they did have these cat litter scoops, so I bought two....one to swoop and one to scoop! They worked great in the too-tall grass, and we can now safely walk through our back yard.

19 comments:

If I could get onions starts that cheaply I wouldn't grow them myself either. I've never even seen onion starts like that around here. I've seen them in six packs (with the six pack price), but never bare root bundles. I wish they would have them.

Jacqui, I used to direct sow onion seeds for using as scallions or salad onions, but now I just buy the sweet onion plants and use them at all sizes. I started my own storage onion seeds last year, but they weren't terribly successful. Germination was poor, and I only got maybe 30-40 little onions from two packets of seed. This is my first try at growing leeks, simply because I had the seed gifted. I hate to admit I've never even tasted a leek, but I do hope they are successful. I'd love to try some potato leek soup.

I bought a small plastic snow shovel for 70% off at Target the other day to use as a pooper scooper. I think I'll pick up a cat little scooper next time I'm at Dollar Tree as well. Definitely tired of playing minesweeper while cleaning up the backyard!

Here's an idea for the puppy poo.I bought one of those 'theatre' long handled dust pan thingies. It's a dust pan on a long handle and it folds up for easy storage. I use my garden mini-rake to rake the poo onto the 'dust' pan and dispose of as necessary. No back bending required!

What a great idea, Barbee! I'm glad there are others, besides me, that are deep in dog poo, LOL! I did buy a small step on garbage can that can be lined with plastic grocery bags. It keeps the odor from permeating the entire back yard. I was burying it, but now I'm likely to plant edibles just about anywhere, so I don't want any contamination.

You better not change your mind! I want to see rows and rows of beautiful corn growing there. Looks like you may have more corn than me this year. I don't have a large area to do corn at my new house, so I may only get to sneak a few ears in some raised beds.

Kris, I will at least use the entire middle of the east bed, I'm thinking probably at least 4'x 16', maybe more. It depends on how much room I'm going to need for peppers and melons, and whether I plant right up to the new fence or leave myself a path for the garden cart. I really only need to get the cart in there in the early spring, and again for winter cleanup, so I might just use that entire area.